


Changing/Unchanging

by SatiricalDraperies



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Body Horror, F/F, Femslash, Femslash February, Sort Of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-04
Updated: 2019-02-04
Packaged: 2019-10-22 01:59:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17653877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SatiricalDraperies/pseuds/SatiricalDraperies
Summary: Arwen thrives in the boundary between worlds, and her lover knows that.





	Changing/Unchanging

**Author's Note:**

> for silmladylove's prompt "an eye for an eye"

Arwen doesn’t know the woods, but she knows the river. Though the trees change every time she visits, the river always runs true. The water gleams silver with the light of the stars, the only light that pierces the thick jungle canopy. Night is indistinguishable from day here. It is the twilight of the elves, and the forest knows that better than anyone else. 

She walks in the edge of the river, keeping both of her bare feet wet. The shore is on her right and the river is on her left. A step in either direction and she will be taken, swallowed up by the roots or the rapids. It is a narrow path she walks, but it is a path she knows well. Arwen thrives in the boundary between worlds, and her lover knows that.

“You returned.”

She stops, the water pooling around her feet, and looks across the water towards the left bank. 

“You knew I would.”

The river looks to be a thousands fathoms wide, and it may as well be, considering what Arwen must do to reach the other side.

“Remember the rules,” her lover says.

“An eye for an eye,” Arwen whispers. She pulls out the knife she brought with her from deep within her dark blue robes. She raises the mithril blade to tickle her lower eyelashes, then plunges it up into her left eye.

There is no pain as she sees her lover in full color, finally more than just a phantom, hovering on the edge of her perception as she trips between consciousness and dreaming. She is all of the colors of autumn, her skin hickory and her hair tawny and her eyes bright like ginger spice. Arwen can only look, and she thinks that this is enough. She could be content, standing here trapped between worlds, her body in one but her vision in another.

And then her lover speaks once more, and Arwen knows that she will never be content with this kind of half lived life. 

“Come to me,” she says, and Arwen is pulled towards the unspoken promise of a life beyond what she knows, a life that has only been hinted at before. 

“Tell me your name,” Arwen says. 

“You know what I am.”

“Less wise and more dangerous,” Arwen recounts, a warning from her youth. “Yet I don’t believe it.”

“I know you don’t,” her lover states. “But if I am not what the stories call me, then you must name me yourself.”

“Then I name you Yávie, the autumn.” 

Arwen takes a step deeper into the currents. “I name you Polda, the strong.” 

The water quickly becomes deeper, and it takes everything she has to not let go. “I name you Úlaire, the ghost.”

Arwen does not look down. The river pitches around her, actively trying to pull her in, but she keeps walking towards her lover. Each stride feels like it could take her halfway around the world and back again, yet she still seems to stay still, the world unchanging around her, even though she knows it must be. 

It must be.

“I name you Tauriel, daughter of the forest!” and then the river rises above her head and Arwen is extinguished.

* * *

“And I name you meleth nîn, my love,” Tauriel whispers, looking at Arwen’s broken body, blood still flowing red against the pale blue of her face. Arwen’s fëa reaches out to her own amidst the destruction and horror. They stand there for a time looking down at Tauriel’s forest and Arwen’s river and Tauriel’s projection and Arwen’s death, and then Arwen grasps her hand and together they look out at their future.


End file.
